With a head space analysis method, a liquid specimen or a solid specimen that is contained in a container (vial) is heated for a predetermined amount of time at a predetermined temperature to volatize predetermined components in a specimen, and a certain amount of gas that includes the volatile components is collected from the head space at the top of the container and is led into a gas chromatograph device and the like. With the headspace analysis method, prior to collecting a gas (specimen gas) that contains the volatile components from the container, a pre-process is performed wherein the vial is placed in an oven and the specimen in the vial is heated (see Patent Literature 1).
Because the higher the heating temperature of the vials, the more efficiently the various volatile components can be extracted, a trend seen in recent years is to increase the heating temperature of the vials. After the heating temperature of the vials is increased and the analysis is completed, the vials are returned to the container holding unit while the vials are still hot. Because workers are free to place the vials in the container-holding unit during the analysis, there is a risk that a worker may inadvertently touch a hot vial.    Patent Literature 1: Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-5913